Run Until the Day We Can't See Who We Are
by Flyawaysnogbox
Summary: "He felt a deep sadness he didn't think he could since he wasn't human, but he imagined this is what heartbreak felt like, and he had two hearts." Post The Angels Take Manhattan


Author's note: Rough night. Feeling angsty, sorry. Post "Angels Take Manhattan". Just a Doctor-centric story. Not very long. Also, not edited. All mistakes are my own.

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own a thing associated with Doctor Who.

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_I'm not running away from things. I'm running to them before they flare and fade forever. _

Rule number one: The Doctor lies.

At the time, maybe those words had been true. His life was made of time, he was time, it existed always for him. He go anywhere in the universe, anytime he wanted to, with whoever.

When those were the days, anyway. Too many things, people, had flared and faded from him. There was always that chance of possibly seeing someone again, of saving a world that'd vanished from time and space. Sometimes with his blue box the Doctor felt invincible. Now all he felt was pain and longing. Overwhelming sorrow for some events he couldn't change. Paradoxes and fixed points in time. Time could be rewritten but history could never be changed.

When he'd spoken to Amy that night, during the year he tried to stick around on earth and behave as a human, when he stayed with his precious Ponds, it had been a conversation he cherished.

Amy's face had been the first face this particular face of his had seen. Then there was Rory, him and Amy were a package deal and they were both seared on to his hearts. It wasn't a feeling that would leave for a long time.

Amelia's page, the last page, the ending was something he should have kept in mind and remembered, but it hurt. He hated endings and this was a permanent farewell. He always ripped out the last page of a book but this one was the most important one in history.

_Hello, old friend. And here we are. You and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well and were very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you always. Sometimes I do worry about you though. I think once we're gone you won't be coming back here for awhile. And you might be alone. Which you should never be. Don't be alone, Doctor. And do one more thing for me. There's a little girl waiting in a garden. She's going to wait a long while, so she's going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to see and fight pirates. She'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived. And save a whale in outer space. Tell her, this is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends._

He wouldn't be returning to New York. The angels were one of the worst enemies he's ever had. Sometimes more scary than Daleks. There were ways to stop the Daleks, but the angels? You blink and you're gone. Witnessing it was a trauma. A pain in his heart when Rory disappeared in the cemetery, his name upon the stone._ In loving memory_. But Amelia's words, that goodbye, calling him Raggedy Man, a name she had adopted for him when was a child - when everyone believed he was just her imaginary friend - those words shattered both his hearts. It was as if they really were broken into a million pieces that couldn't be pieced back together.

He'd never met for her to become the girl that waited. A few minutes for him had been twelve years for her. It'd wounded her childhood, really. Years of therapy. An obsession she'd had, drawings she drew, a doll of him she's sewn together herself, a TARDIS she'd made from clay. Now her, and Rory, were the humans that's been locked in his hearts and stolen away from an enemy so great that he'd never been able to think of a way to defeat him. He was the most clever man in the world wasn't he? And look at him now.

The Doctor wished now that he could go tell her a bedtime story, telling her everything Amy asked to be mentioned in her great farewell. The man she would fall in love with would be known as the Last Centurion. A plastic Roman who'd guarded her for two millenia while she was stored away in a cube known as the Pandorica. The machine, of sorts, the Doctor would use to create the second Big Bang. It had worked. She would want to be told that he, her silly imaginary friend, would show up at her wedding - only for the dancing, of course- even though she wasn't supposed to remember him after he had to reset time of space.

He felt a deep sadness he didn't think he could since he wasn't human, but he imagined this is what heartbreak felt like, and he had two hearts

_Don't be alone, Doctor._

What else what there for him now. Now it really was about running. Running away from things, from people, getting to close. He couldn't hard anyone else's life.

He did what he had to do, floated into the sky, amongst the clouds, where he would be unseen - invisible - and he settled in there. Upon a cloud.

A madman, alone in his blue box.


End file.
